Old Girlfriends 4: Peri
by MizJoely
Summary: Fourth in the 'Old Girlfriends' series. Whatever could Peri have seen in the 6th Doctor, and vice versa? Ace is losing sleep over that very question.
1. Rude Awakening

"Let's see, Peri is next, right?"

The person to whom the question was directed mumbled a faint, incoherent response and burrowed further under the covers in hopes that the speaker would go away. Instead, the voice was raised, shouting cheerfully through the door. "I said Peri is next, right?"

"Go away!"

The sound of a pillow hitting the door brought a smile to the speaker's face. "Right, then you don't want to talk about it. Got it."

There was the sound of what might have been muffled cursing, a thud as of a body rolling off a bed and landing on the floor, more cursing, then suddenly the door was yanked open.

"Think you're bloody funny, don't you."

"I think if you want to hear Peri's story you'd best get yourself dressed and meet me for breakfast." The Doctor patted Ace's disheveled head and pulled the door shut. As he walked away, he was glad that the door muffled her rejoinder to the point of inaudibility.

**oOo**

"So why the change of heart?"

The Doctor, expecting a challenge of some sort, smiled to himself before turning around. He arranged an innocent expression on his face, allowing Ace to witness the arrangement and thus recognizing it for what she already knew it to be: an answer to the challenge. "Change of heart? Whatever are you talking about, Ace? Eggs?"

Ace, still befuddled not only by the Doctor's waking her far too early by her standards but also by the apparent non sequitur, merely gaped at him. "Eggs," she repeated, then, as it finally occurred to her what he was asking: "Eggs, yes, scrambled." She plopped onto the kitchen chair, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

"Toast?"

"Yeah, toast, of course, and coffee, some coffee would be lovely, and why haven't you answered my question?" Ace's voice gained in volume and belligerence as she reached the last word, and she glared at the Doctor through her fingers and unbound masses of dark brown hair. With one thrust she pushed it away from her face and over her shoulders. The chair scraped on the floor as she abruptly stood up. "Why the change of heart?" she repeated. Slowly, as if to a backwards child.

The Doctor's mischievous expression returned. "Honestly? I thought it would be nice to one-up you for a change. I knew you were going to ask again, I knew it would be soon, so I chose to take the initiative. Simple as that." He returned his attention to breakfast preparations, reaching back without looking to thrust a steaming mug of coffee into Ace's hands just as she opened her mouth to voice another grumbly objection.

The Doctor hid another grin as he heard Ace settle back into her seat and take a noisy sip of the coffee, followed by a stifled gasp as she realized belatedly that she had failed to add her usual dollop of milk. And, of course, by the realization that steam indicated a _hot_ beverage. A _very_ hot beverage.

They remained silent until they'd finished eating and each settled back with a second cup of coffee–Ace's properly diluted and cooled, this time. She looked much more alert, and had twisted her hair into a sort of knot which she tucked into the collar of her dressing-gown. "So you decided to take the initiative, what's that all about?" There was still a trace of belligerence in her voice, but only a trace. An expertly prepared breakfast had done a better turn than any amount of music in soothing the savage breast.

"Peri and I didn't exactly start off on good footing," the Doctor said, by way of a sideways reply. Which was to say, no reply to the immediate question but rather to the one he knew Ace really wanted answered. "I tried to kill her." He watched with a half-smile as Ace sputtered into her coffee, lowering it to the table with exaggerated slowness as she stared at him.

"Tried to kill her. And she still decided to travel with you." Ace's voice was skeptical.

"Well, it wasn't really my fault. Regenerative trauma can take all sorts of forms; my emotions were literally all over the place," he admitted with a frown. An unpleasant memory, that; regenerating was never a pleasant experience, but that one counted among his worst. "Plus I had just saved her life by sacrificing my own," he felt compelled to point out. "So an insincere and poorly executed attempt to end hers was merely an act of cosmic balance. If you're willing to look at the big picture."

Ace ignored the big picture to zero in on the important bits. "So in spite of this brilliant beginning, you and she still..." She made an exaggerated kissy-face. When the Doctor's frown darkened she glared right back at him. "You started it, Professor."

So he had. He resisted the impulse to stick his tongue out at her in gesture as childish as her words had been. "Yes, she and I still..." the Doctor allowed his voice to trail off as Ace's had, but refrained from smacking his lips in imitation of a kiss. "Once I'd, er, settled down a bit into my newest form. And not too long after I thought she was actually interested in a former companion we'd run into, along with my second self."

"A girl you fancied, fancied someone else?" Ace's interest was piqued. "Who was it?"

"Jamie McCrimmon." The syllables of his former companion's name were pronounced with relish. A Scottish name spoken in a Scottish burr had a great deal of style. "And I was mistaken in where her interest lay. Which actually turned out quite well for me..."


	2. Time Lord Two Step

**oooOooo**

"We could have asked them to stay."

"What's that?" He'd heard her, he just didn't want to admit it.

"We could have asked them to stay." Peri spoke the same words, only louder.

"Them? Who?"

He heard the sounds of a long-suffering sigh from behind him. He was being deliberately obtuse, and she knew it, but she felt strongly enough about the subject to persist. "You know who. Them. Your other self and Jamie."

"Yes, and Jamie." There was something in the Doctor's voice, and he hated hearing it, but it was there and all he could do was wait to see if Peri had picked up on it.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ah, clever girl. She'd noticed the undertones. Good. Or was it? While he pondered his desire for her to hear what he logically should want to keep private, she waited. Impatiently. Just short of tapping her foot. "Doctor?"

He looked at her, finally. She was certainly easy on the eyes, as his American friends would say. Which, since she was American, was a perfectly appropriate way to put it. "I was merely agreeing with you, Peri."

She shook her head. "No you weren't." Her eyes had gone decidedly unfriendly. "You're being deliberately thick-headed today. Why?"

They were in the Console Room, having sent the TARDIS off Earth with no particular destination in mind. Without her having asked to stay behind or be brought home, as he'd half-expected once this particular ordeal had ended. Even if the TARDIS had landed in Spain, it was only a spit-shot from Greece, where she'd been when he picked her up. "Why didn't you?" he asked, distracted by his own thoughts, responding to them rather than to her question.

"Why didn't I what?" He'd thoroughly confused her this time, and there was a hint of concern in her voice. "Doctor, you're over the whole regeneration thing, aren't you?" Unconsciously she stepped away from him. Just in case. After all, he'd tried to kill her once...

"Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm fine, no trauma, no emotional roller-coaster, I just let myself be distracted by a question I was asking myself," he babbled, then forced himself to stop. He took a deep breath. "Peri. Why didn't you ask me to take you home?"

"Home?" She stared at him blankly, as if the concept was an unfamiliar one. Then her expression cleared. "Oh, home, on Earth. You mean why didn't I want to stay?"

He nodded. "Exactly. Why didn't you?" They'd gone back full circle to the original question, only this time she'd got the thought-thread that led up to it. In spades.

She shrugged. "I guess it never occurred to me. I mean, you can take me home anytime I want, right?" Her voice caught, a sudden note of anxiety creeping in. "Can't you?"

"Of course!" He wanted to sound insulted, affronted at her lack of faith, but found his voice instead full of reassurance. "Anytime and anywhere you ask."

"Ok, then, I guess I don't feel like going home. Not just yet." Peri smiled, but it faded as she recalled the beginning of this conversation. "Do you have some kind of problem with Jamie?"

"Jamie? No, why should I?" Defensiveness, hah, how convincing. Inwardly, the Doctor winced; outwardly, he shrugged. An exaggerated shrug. A shrug that said, clear as bells, "Of course I do."

Peri crossed her arms, and this time her foot did tap. Twice. The Doctor felt his breath catch in his throat as she briefly reminded him of Tegan. "Are you going to answer the question, or are we just going to keep spinning our wheels? Because if that's the case, then I'm going to take a shower and get something to eat." She grimaced, in memory of their late, unlamented Andrugum captors and their voracious, all-encompassing appetites. "Well, maybe not eat. But definitely change."

He was briefly distracted by a mental image of her in the shower, and it was that that put the edge in his voice. "Was it my second self you wanted to spend more time with, or a certain muscular young Scotsman?" Hm, no disguising that; even an idiot would recognize the jealousy for exactly what it was.

Peri stared at him. "What's gotten into you, Doctor? I just meant that _you_ might have wanted to spend time with them. Either of them; I figured you don't run into old companions that often, at least that's the impression I got. And they seemed nice enough–well, your other self probably wasn't at his best, but you could have spent time together. Talking, or whatever."

"Right. While you and Jamie spent time together, 'whatever-ing'." In for a penny, in for a pound. No point in trying to hide his feelings. Not that he'd even made the feeblest attempt to do so since the beginning of this conversation, and the longer it went, the closer his emotions came to the surface. He wasn't sure why, and desperately wanted to blame it on the lingering aftereffects of his near brush with genetic digression. His second self had been injected with Androgum DNA and quickly reverted to a brutish, self-indulgent primitive. He himself had begun to feel the effects, but he knew they were long vanished from his system. Thus he could blame his current emotional state on no one but himself, uncomfortable though that idea might be.

_You've gone and done it again, Doctor,_ he thought in disgust. _Fallen for another one. And chosen the worst possible way to express it, to boot._

"Doctor, are you...jealous? Because you think I was interested in Jamie?" Peri's words were hesitant, as if she expected to be told she was completely misinterpreting him.

He was tempted, highly tempted, to say those very words, but stopped himself. "How would you feel if I were?" he countered, instead of directly answering her. Putting off the moment for a little longer. Enjoying her company for the brief minutes she would no doubt allow him before leaving. Would she even answer him?

Peri blinked rapidly, running nervous fingers along the edges of the TARDIS console. "I don't know," she finally replied, lowering her eyes to study her fingers. Or the edge of the console. Quite possibly both. "I didn't think you'd noticed me. That way."

An incredulous laugh was startled out of him, as were his next, impulsive words. "Good Gods, woman, there isn't a healthy heterosexual male alive who wouldn't notice you 'that' way." He stopped abruptly as she stared at him, her cheeks flushed with sudden anger. "I'm sorry, that didn't come out the way I intended..."

"I certainly hope not." Her tone was beyond icy, far colder than the heated flush in her cheeks. "But it's nice to know where I stand. The phrase you're looking for is 'hottie,' just for the record. Since apparently that's all you think of me."

"I didn't mean your body!" The words were out before he could stop them, any more than he seemed capable of stopping any of his words today. "Well, no, of course I did, but I didn't mean just your body," he babbled. Babbling! Again! He would have to give himself a stern talking-to. When his mouth was of a mind to listen, which it certainly wasn't now. "Peri, you're lovely, you're fun and great company and beautiful, and all I meant was that I appreciate all of you, the complete package, and I'm making a bloody great fool of myself, so I think I'll stop now."

The flush was fading from her cheeks, and he could have sworn there was a smile tugging at her lips. Her body language had relaxed as well, he noted with a great deal of relief. He tried a smile of his own, tentative and ready to dive for cover, but she allowed the grin to reach her own lips and eyes. "Did anyone ever tell you how difficult it is to talk to you when they're attracted to you?"

The grin deepened. "No one that didn't at least come from the same planet," she admitted. "Is that why you're acting like a complete jackass? Because you're attracted to me?"

He nodded. "Yes. And under normal circumstances I would at least try to keep my feelings to myself until I'd gotten an inkling as to your thoughts on the matter. However, for some reason, I have managed to completely bungle this entire situation."

"Because you thought I liked Jamie," Peri said. Not asked; she knew exactly what had precipitated this, obviously. But was she amused, annoyed, or disconcerted by his confession? She was still smiling, also shaking her head as she turned away from him. "If you'd given me some hint that you felt this way I might have been able to reassure you on that matter."

"So you're not attracted to him?" A note of hope crept into the Doctor's voice.

"I didn't say that." Her words were like a dash of cold water. "But it wouldn't be any of your business if I was. Especially since you didn't see fit to tell me how you felt until now." Ah, annoyed. Amused, yes, but definitely annoyed. Peri turned back to face him. "Doctor, you've just sprung this on me; as far as I'm concerned it came out of nowhere, and it's something I need to think about." She hesitated, and he received the impression that what she said next wasn't what she'd been about to say. "I think I'd like that shower now. I'll see you later."

"So you don't want to go home?" The Doctor's voice was tentative, but he had to know. Even if pressing the issue made things worse, he had to know.

Peri shook her head as she opened the interior door. "Not just yet." The door closed behind her just shy of a slam, but the Doctor took the hint and let her go.

**oooOooo**

"Ooh, botched that one, didn't you?"

"A bit," the Doctor admitted. "That particular regeneration wasn't exactly...polished."

"He's just one shy of you; how come you ended up with all the polish?"

The Doctor squinted at her; was she serious, or teasing? A bit of both, as always, he decided. "Each regeneration is different in personality to the rest. Different body, different reactions..."

"Different fashion sense," she muttered.

"Yes," the Doctor agreed wryly. "That one had none."

"Still, he was kind of cute. Not as dishy as your fifth self, but not half bad," Ace pronounced. "Bit of a maniac, though. Did he scare Peri off?" She'd unconsciously slipped into speaking of the Doctor's past self as if he were a different person entirely.

"No, I did not scare her off," the Doctor replied, lightly emphasizing the "I", to remind her they were still speaking about him. "Although," he was forced to confess, "I was amazed that I didn't."

"So how long did she leave you hanging?"

"Not as long as I deserved, longer than I wanted..."


	3. Fireside Chat

**oooOooo**

He was reading in his room when he heard a tap at the door. He lowered the book, a collection of Shakespear's _Sonnets_, and half-rose from his seat. "Yes? Peri? Is everything all right?"

She'd opened the door and slipped into the room after hearing her name, hesitating on the threshold before closing the door behind her and looking around curiously. "This is your room? Just this? I pictured something a lot larger."

"What, a larger than life room for my larger than life personality?"

"I wanted to ask you something," she side-stepped the question with a wry grin and shake of her head, but there was something, a tension about her, and he immediately realized she was returning to their almost-argument of the other day, and the roundabout way he'd come to admit he had feelings for her. Gods above, he hated that term, but had to admit it was the easiest way to express things right now. An Earth phrase for an Earth woman.

"Ask away." He settled back into his chair, indicating the second one if she wanted it. After a moment, she walked toward him, her eyes still taking in the details of his untidy life. The bed, king-sized, four-postered and only haphazardly straightened, centered grandly on the far wall near the door to his private bathing chamber. The faithful coat-rack, now standing next to the main door, with his coat of many colors and a variety of other clothes hanging from the hooks. The out-sized dresser, tucked away discreetly in a corner, with a row of shoes lined up beneath it, toes hidden, back ends protruding immodestly. The fireplace he'd added only recently, or at least the TARDIS had, on the wall opposite the bed, flanked by two chairs with a small but sturdy mahogany table between them. There was a Victorian-looking mock-gas lamp on the table, positioned to shed decent lighting if a reader chose either of the comfortable wing-backs to sit in. There were also matching mahogany bookshelves flanking the fireplace, stuffed to the gills with classics from more than one world, but with a preponderance of Earth literature crowding the shelves.

She gave a grunt of surprise as her feet sank into the thick Persian carpet in that covered the space between his bed and the fireplace, then impulsively kicked off her shoes to better appreciate its luxuriant nap. "This is great!" she exclaimed, sinking down into the chair he'd indicated, looking at the elaborate marble fireplace (with a sock hanging over one end, he noted disapprovingly), admiring the silver candelabra on the sockless end, contemplating the vivid landscape hanging above it...looking everywhere, he realized, but at him.

"Peri." He said her name softly, but with a firmness that surprised both of them, startled her into looking at him, directly into his eyes before ducking her head down to study her feet, or the carpet. Or the other sock resting half-under her chair, he really needed to pick up after himself once in a while...Now he was doing it. Focusing on the inconsequentials. She'd come to talk but was hesitating; one word from him would no doubt send her from the room, the issue still unresolved, and he discovered that he didn't want things to go on as they had.

With no destination in mind, they'd not made planetfall, not left the TARDIS, for several days. Days in which each managed to continually miss the other except in passing. He'd spent the time catching up on some badly needed maintenance, doing a bit of this and that, noting each time he saw her where she'd been; the pool, obvious by her bathing costume (which he'd greatly admired as she hurried past him with little more than a muttered "Hello"). The kitchen with the fantastic pastry maker, as the tell-tale crumbs on the front of her blouse told him...and what he'd been doing looking at the front of her blouse he hadn't dared admit to himself. But now was the time to stop dodging. He'd left it up to her, and here she was. No backing out allowed, for either of them. "Peri." He said her name again, his voice cajoling, and she looked up, reluctantly, this time holding his gaze until he spoke. "What did you want to ask me?"

"What made you think I was interested in Jamie? That way?" She blurted the question out immediately, as if unable to hold it in any longer.

It wasn't the question he'd been expecting; he grunted a surprised "Huh" before leaning back in his chair. Breaking eye contact again. "Nothing concrete," he finally answered, his gaze captured and held by the dancing flames in front of them. "Nothing substantial. Just a feeling, I suppose. Perhaps the way you looked at him, or more likely the way he looked at you."

"He looked at me?" Peri sounded surprised, and he turned to find her leaning against the arm of her chair. Towards him. "I mean, I know he looked at me, but you think he looked at me like..._that_?" She floundered to a stop; obviously he'd surprised her with his response as much as she had surprised him with her question.

The Doctor nodded. "Oh yes, there was no mistaking it." He'd been a long row of regenerations away from traveling with Jamie McCrimmon, but he still recognized the boy's way of looking at a lass he fancied.

"So he looked at me _that_ way, and you thought I looked at him? That way?" She was seeking clarification he wasn't sure he could offer, but he nodded anyway. He hadn't actually seen her doing any such thing, but at the time he thought he had. The intensity of his reaction to that perceived interest on her part toward his former traveling companion had taken him by surprise, and he told her so before he could stop and think about it.

"That's when I realized I was beginning to have feelings for you," he concluded. That phrase again; how he was starting to loathe it. He leaned on the arm of his chair, unconsciously mirroring her pose so that they were physically closer together than when she'd first taken her seat. Their faces, anyway. "And instead of putting them aside, as would have been appropriate, and letting myself process them, I immediately acted like a jealous fool. I'm sorry." The apology was as impulsive as the entire confession, but just as sincere.

"Feelings and attraction," Peri murmured, her gaze gone distant. "But not love?"

He wasn't sure how to take that question, and answered with caution. "I think it would be rash of me to say that when I've just realized I felt more for you than friendship." He hoped that would do.

Apparently it was the right thing to say. Peri smiled suddenly, and nodded. "Good. I was afraid you were rushing things. After all, I don't even know your name."

"Theta." The word was out before he could stop himself, a name, a nickname, really, from a past so distant he'd almost forgotten it. "You can call me Theta. If you like."

"Theta." She tried it out, then straightened in her seat and held out her hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, Theta." Then, as he tentatively reached out to clasp her hand in his own, she wrinkled her nose. "I don't know. It'll take some getting used to."

Her hand was warm in his, and she showed no sign of wanting it back. "So."

"So." She was still smiling, still allowing him to hold her hand. "So what?"

"So what next?" he asked, grinning at the silly turn the conversation had suddenly taken.

"So maybe you want to know if I return your feelings? Feel the same attraction?" Her voice was gently rebuking as she reminded him that he hadn't asked those extremely important questions.

"Maybe I do," he admitted in a murmur. "Maybe I'm afraid to know."

"Maybe you shouldn't be," she murmured back. She'd leaned forward again, smiling expectantly, and he leaned toward her as well. Their lips met, hesitant at first, but quickly growing in eagerness as the kiss continued, longer by far than the Doctor had dared to hope.


	4. Trials of Life

**oooOooo**

Ace rolled her eyes as the Doctor fell silent. "So you kissed her and now you're going to stop just when it's getting good," she guessed.

"Why Ace, you make it sound as if I revel in keeping you in the dark as to the most intimate details of my personal life."

Ace frowned. When he put it that way, she felt like a tabloid reporter out for royal blood. Or at least compromising snaps.

He stood up, and Ace stifled an aggravated moan. Surely he wasn't going to just stop there--! But no, he was only pitching the remains of their breakfast into the disposal, popping the dishes into the device she'd always called a dishwasher, even though it apparently not only washed and dried whatever was put into it, but also magically replaced everything into the cupboards. Well, she'd never seen the Doctor put anything away, and she'd certainly never put anything away, but every time she reached for a dish she knew had been recently used, there it was, back where it belonged. Like magic. "More coffee?" More magic, that coffee pot; it never seemed to be empty, or cold, or to have turned the liquid within to molasses, as her mother's inevitably did back home when left on too long.

"Please." It was her third cup, one more than usual, but she didn't want to stop the Doctor's story. Not until she found out why and how Peri left. The TARDIS records had been _very_ confusing on that issue. "So?" she prompted. "Then what?" It was turning into her favorite question, not to mention his favorite question to dodge. Oh, he always ended up answering it, but never with the stuff she _really_ wanted to hear.

"Then we made love like a pair of otters in heat."

Not only did Ace sputter into her coffee, she dropped the whole cup, smashing it to pieces on the otherwise spotless tile floor.

The Doctor "tched" disapprovingly. "Really, Ace, how careless of you." But his eyes were twinkling, his lips twitching until the laughter could no longer be contained and he gave into it helplessly. "The look on your face!" he gasped after regaining a modicum of control. "Priceless!"

Ace glared at him. "That wasn't funny, Professor."

"It was what you wanted to hear, wasn't it?" The Doctor sobered immediately, except for the twinkle lingering in his eyes. Making a mental note that there were some truths she just wasn't ready for, in spite of her protests to the contrary, he rummaged under the sink for the dust-pan and brush. After handing them over to Ace, who knelt reluctantly and swept the whole mess up, he solicitously blotted up the remaining dampness. The TARDIS floor would clean itself fully later, when they were no longer cluttering up her kitchen.

After everything had been taken care of, Ace hesitated, one hand on the back her seat. "If you didn't want to talk about it any more, all you had to do was say so."

The Doctor had not only returned to his own seat, he'd poured himself a cup of tea. "Don't pout, Ace, you know I was just teasing you. If you want to hear the rest, sit down and listen. But if you walk out now," he added warningly, "that'll be it for this one, no matter how much you pester me."

Ace sat back down immediately, waving away the Doctor's offer for another cup of coffee. "I think I've just proven how much I don't need one right now, Professor," was her wry observation. She plunked her elbows down on the table and rested her chin in her hands. "I'm listening."

"It was a very volatile relationship," he admitted. "Even touchier than the one I had with Tegan."

"None of them seem to have been all tea and kippers," she shot back, still sulky over his teasing answer.

The Doctor arched an eyebrow, and made a mental note to tone down any future poking of fun. He had to remind himself how young she was, not just because she was human and therefore terminally short-lived, but also that she was still a teenager, as she'd pointed out to him recently. Still immature even by her species' terms. And thus sensitive to being made fun of, even though she'd cheerfully skewer him, as she'd demonstrated on more than one occasion. "No, I suppose not," was all he said, in a mild tone that rebuked her more sharply than if he'd barked at her.

Ace flushed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to come off as such a snot."

The Doctor nodded, settling back more comfortably in his chair. "We all have our moments, Peri and I perhaps more than others. I seemed to _feel_ things more intensely in that particular incarnation, and poor Peri took the brunt of it. In spite of our, er, physical relationship, and the odd moment of peace, we didn't really start to get along better and make something of our relationship until the end. When, of course, it was too late."

"Was that the whole trial thing?" Ace was extremely interested in hearing his take on that particular mess; there was virtually nothing about it in the TARDIS files. Peri, even though a child of the electronic age, had kept no computer files of her own at all. Even Mel, meticulous as she had been recording people's comings and goings, had merely noted that there was "conflicting information" as to how Peri had really left the TARDIS.

"Yes, the 'trial thing,'" the Doctor repeated distastefully, although whether it was her choice of words or the trial itself that he was reacting to, Ace wasn't sure. "I have never been manipulated like that, not even by the White Guardian or the Celestial Intervention Agency." Ah, anger at the memory, then. "The fact that I spent a great deal of the time with amnesia because they pulled me out of my time stream didn't help matters at all. Especially when they showed me 'proof' that Peri had died."

Ace leaned back in her chair with a "whoof" of shock. "Died?"

He nodded, his expression savage, and Ace hoped he never looked at her like that. "Supposedly she'd died. Because of me. But no, in comes the Master, of all people, to assure me that she'd actually gone off to become a warrior queen."

"Just leaving you in the dust?" Ace was incredulous. Peri'd seemed flighty, but not cruel. "Or were you already done, like with Romana?"

"We most certainly were not _done_," the Doctor refuted with an emphatic shake of his head. "Not by a long shot."

"So which was it, then? Was she dead or did she leave you and marry some other chap?" Ace was still confused.

The Doctor didn't help by suddenly smiling, nor did his next word shed any light. "Neither."


	5. Recriminations

_A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating, but take heart! Only a few chapters to go..._

**oooOooo**

Peri was dead. Her mind had been supplanted, her body destroyed. Peri was dead, and he had been pulled away, moments, possibly seconds away from saving her, to suffer through a trial that had been nothing but a malicious manipulation from the start. And never mind the Master's blatant lies; she hadn't gone off to be a warrior queen at the other end of the galaxy; what a load of rubbish that had been. Merely a ploy to appear sympathetic to the Doctor's cause, when all the Master had wanted to do was get his black-gloved hands on the Matrix.

"Doctor?"

He looked up, startled, to see Mel watching him with worried eyes. "Mel. Melanie Bush," he mused. "How did we meet, again?"

Her eyes widened in alarm. "I thought your memories were restored after we returned to the TARDIS! Should we go back to Gallifrey?"

He shuddered at the thought, masked it with an emphatic shake of his head. "No. I'm fine. Silly of me to forget again; I was caught up in some less pleasant thoughts, less pleasant memories..."

"You were thinking about Peri." The words were quietly spoken. Mel's eyes turned sympathetic, understanding, and he lowered his so he wouldn't be tempted to lash out. He didn't want anyone's pity, but he restrained himself. Mel was only trying to help.

"Yes. Peri." He fiddled with a couple of levers and a knob, whichever ones happened to be under his restless fingers.

"Do you want to visit her? See how she's doing?"

The Doctor's head snapped up, and he stared at Mel in disbelief. Mel. Melanie Bush. How _had_ they met, exactly? In spite of his reassuring words, he still couldn't quite catch hold of the memory. One minute he was traveling with Peri, the next he was on Gallifrey...and the next he was back in the TARDIS. With Mel. Who obviously believed the Master's spin on Peri's situation, swallowed it whole. "No," he finally managed in a strangled voice. "I'd rather not." Seeing her blasted remains was the only way to visit Peri without violating the ever so sacred Laws of Time, and that was one visit he knew he'd never be able to make.

Mel moved uncertainly toward the inner door of the TARDIS. They were in the Console Room, he realized with a start. Had they just come on board? That memory was jumbled as well, mixed in with leaving Gallifrey and a hundred other memories of getting back on board. Coming home. "Well, then, I'll just head for my quarters, I'm past due for a shower and change of clothes."

Those words brought another memory; for a moment, an image of Peri superimposed itself over Mel's form as he recalled the circumstances under which she'd spoken them. But Mel, he knew, was not someone he would ever admit deeper feelings to. Not that she wasn't attractive, because she was. A bit too chirpy, perhaps, but with a good heart and a pretty face to go with it, not to mention a better mind than some he'd met during his lifetime. But the memory of Peri's destruction would always be tangled with his memories of Mel. She, at least, would never be one of his regrets.

"Mel." His voice stopped her on the threshold; she half-turned to face him with an inquisitive smile that only barely masked her lingering concern over his mental well-being. "Thank you."

"For what?" When he didn't answer right away, she sighed in exasperation. "Well, whatever it is, you're quite welcome. Just let me know if you change your mind. About going to see how Peri's doing." The door shut silently behind her, and he was alone.

"For caring," he said to the door. But Mel was gone, and he was alone.

He wandered around the Console Room, aimlessly circling the perimeter. He touched a roundel, then rubbed tiredly at his eyes. "I'm sorry, Peri," he whispered. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there to save you."

"Then it's a good thing the TARDIS did it for you."


	6. Ghost in the Machine

"Fabulous. Now I'm hallucinating."

Peri laughed. "Sorry, Doc, but I'm not all in your head."

The Doctor glared at the figure standing before him. He jabbed an accusing finger in her direction. "You are dead, Peri, your mind destroyed by Crozier and your body by that bloody barbarian Yrcanos after Kiv took it over. Or," he continued sarcastically, without bothering to take a breath, "if the Master is to be believed, you went off with Yrcanos and became his queen. Either way, you are not here."

Peri stood, watching with an amused smile on her face, waiting for the diatribe to end. When the Doctor finished, she waited another beat, then slowly shook her head. "I told you, the TARDIS saved me." Her grin turned impish. "I may not be in _your_ head, Doc, but I'm in hers."

"Hallucinating, hah!" he muttered, ignoring her as he paced deliberately around the Console, facing the interior door. "Audible and visible, but!" he whirled around and marched purposefully toward her. "But, if I touch you, you won't be real!" He stopped just in front of her and very deliberately poked her in the shoulder.

"Hey!" Peri's voice was indignant as she slapped his hand away. "Quit poking me!"

The Doctor stared. His hand, contrary to expectations, had not passed right through her, causing her to vanish as the hallucination was banished. Instead, his finger made direct contact with her shoulder. Just as her hand made direct contact with his. He rubbed absently at his smarting fingers as he mulled the possibilities. "You're not an hallucination," he finally pronounced.

"Nope." Peri sounded annoyed. "I already told you that. And I may not feel things the way I used to, but I don't appreciate being poked."

Everything she'd said since first appearing finally made its way to his conscious mind. "Wait, the TARDIS rescued you? How? And what d'you mean, you don't feel things the way you used to?"

Peri sighed and took his hand in hers. It felt warm, real, just like Peri's hand ought to feel, and the Doctor felt a thrill of hope. Not dead, not living as Yrcanos' queen half a galaxy away… Her next words, however, brought him back to the bitterness of reality. "Sorry, Doc, I'm not alive, either. This body may feel real to you, but it's just a holographic projection. The TARDIS saved my consciousness, not my life. My real body's still just a pile of ashes." She looked incredibly sad, but the Doctor had the feeling she was sad for him, not for herself.

He gently disentangled his fingers from hers. From the holographic projections of fingers, rather. "Now how in the universe did she do that?" he murmured, glancing automatically at the innocent-looking Console. Peri opened her mouth to answer, and he shushed her with a sad smile. "No, don't bother. I'd really rather not know, because then I'd be tempted to use it every time I lose someone in the future."

"It probably won't ever work again; the circumstances were pretty unique," Peri said, perhaps meaning to comfort him. "It was a combination of your connection to the TARDIS, the way my consciousness was removed, even Yrcanos' destruction of my body was a factor. I don't really understand it all, not yet, but I will once I become fully integrated into the TARDIS."

That caught his attention. "Fully integrated? You mean, become a permanent part of the TARDIS?" He sounded intrigued, then caught himself, shook his head at the thought. "Absolutely not! Not that I'd mind having you about, but it wouldn't be fair to you; you'd lose your sense of self. I'd rather try to find a way to get you into a new body of your own, a clone or even an android, the technology certainly exists--"

"Maybe it does, but that's not what I want. What _we_ want," Peri interrupted firmly. "We both, we _all_ know those things don't ever seem to work out. Don't we." She held his gaze until he reluctantly nodded. She was right; after all, look at what had just happened, all because someone was attempting a mind transfer.

"But for every failure, there's an equal number of success stories," he argued, but she just looked at him. "Well, perhaps not an equal number, but some," he tried again, weakly.

"I'd rather not take the chance," Peri replied. Her expression softened. "I don't mind losing my sense of self, not if it means becoming part of the TARDIS. Remaining a part of your life." Her eyes lit with wonder. "Just being in there now, even with the TARDIS keeping my consciousness separate so I could talk to you, the things I've discovered--! I was never an A student, Doc," she confessed. "Never what you'd call a brainiac. Now I have the chance to learn more than anyone I've ever met, more than I could learn even just traveling with you, and that's what I want. I'm just lucky the TARDIS is willing to share you with me."

"Yes, she has been known to be rather temperamental," the Doctor agreed wryly. He caught her gaze again. "So why bother with this?" he indicated her holographic body. "Just to say good-bye?"

She nodded. "Exactly. I didn't want to leave you wondering what really happened to me, which memories were real and which were fabricated by the Valeyard." She pulled a sour face. "Plus I really didn't want you to think I'd gone off with Yrcanos. I would have gone nuts if I'd had to spend the rest of my life with him!"

The Doctor laughed, feeling better than he had since being pulled to Gallifrey for that mockery of a trial. Truly better, not just play-acting for Mel's sake. "If that's what you really want…"

She nodded. "It is. It's not that I don't want to be with you the way we used to, it's just that I'm a little scared that something will go wrong and I'll really be destroyed. At least in the TARDIS, I know I'll be with you. Because, you know, the TARDIS loves you as much as I do."

"In spite of my many shortcomings?" He had to lighten the moment; to hear Peri confess her love for him at the moment she was bidding him good-bye would be too much to bear otherwise.

Peri grinned. "Maybe even because of them. Quirks and all, we both love you. That's part of the way she was able to save me.So you see, this is the perfect solution."

"Well, perhaps not perfect, but as good as you two seem to be willing to risk," the Doctor countered, not quite suppressing the disappointment in his voice.

"Exactly. Because neither of us wants to take the chance of losing you." She stepped forward and put her hands on his shoulders. "I'll be with you always, Theta. I want you to be happy, to find someone else to be happy with, someday." She leaned forward and kissed him. He kissed her back, and sometime before he'd been ready to end it, she vanished.

**oooOooo**

"And you never saw her again?"

The Doctor shook his head. "She never took on that holographic form again, but there was really no need. Not once she'd become fully integrated; the TARDIS is her body now." He patted the counter affectionately. "Things have even become a tad more efficient around here since then."

"And she really won't mind if you ever find someone else?" Ace was familiar with the concept of unselfish love only in the academic sense. It seemed impossible to her that anyone could feel that way, just let the person they loved go to someone else, no matter how disembodied and integrated with a machine they might be. Come to think of it, that was a weird enough thought on its own, that Peri was still hanging about like some kind of high-tech ghost.

"No more than the TARDIS ever would," the Doctor replied to her question. "She's not hovering over me, Ace, like some kind of vengeful spirit." Once again, he'd read her thoughts. She hated when he did that. "She and the TARDIS are one, which means she would have to have shed all her human failings or it would never have worked."

"But what about her human emotions?" Ace argued, still uneasy. She had a sudden picture of Peri taking form and doing all the mundane chores around the TARDIS that seemed to do themselves. "What if she gets tired of picking up after us or does get jealous when you find someone new?"

The Doctor sighed and rose to his feet. "I'm sorry, Ace, I can't explain it any clearer than I already have. As for Peri's human emotions…" he smiled, a private smile, before looking back at her concerned face. "As for her human emotions, they would by necessity have been just as fully integrated into the TARDIS as the rest of her consciousness. Since Peri sacrificed her sense of self, she also gave up those emotions, at least as you would recognize them."

Ace set her jaw stubbornly. "I think she was daft," she pronounced. "If it ever happens to me, Doctor, you make sure and find me proper body to live in."

"I give you my word." The Doctor watched as Ace walked out of the room, pulling her dressing-gown tighter around herself in an unconscious gesture, as if to protect herself from prying eyes. Well, he'd told her to get dressed. "She'll get used to the idea," he murmured, half to himself and half to the TARDIS. And Peri.

He chuckled and headed for the Console Room. Time to plot their next course. Yes, Ace would get used to the idea. He made a private bet with himself as to how long it would take. "When she asks me about Leela," he said aloud. "That's when I'll know."

The End

_A/N: Originally this story was going to strictly be in line with the other "Old Girlfriends" stories, and just sort of fill in the relationship blanks between the 6th Doctor and Peri. However, as I reviewed details of "Trial of a Time Lord", I realized that I had never been satisfied with the way Peri was written out of the show; or rather, how she _wasn't_ written out. The Master, of all people, reassuring the Doctor that Peri was living as a warrior queen? I personally never bought it. Then a few years ago Nicola Bryant was the guest at a local Dr. Who convention (Springfield, MA) and she voiced her own dissatisfaction with that scenario. She said she had a lot of fun filming the whole "head-shaving, being taken over by an alien and then being killed" thing, and felt that they diluted the impact by making it seem as if it never really happened. That statement really stuck with me, so when I came to the point in this story where I had to figure out the ending, I decided to incorporate my own ideas as to Peri's ultimate fate. I hope people find it at least interesting…and I know you'll let me know whether you like it or not!_

_One last thing: A website I find absolutely vital in helping to jog my memory when it comes to specific details of a particular episode (especially those I haven't seen in 20 or more years), is "The Doctor Who Reference Guide" ( at Not only do they give detailed overviews of each episode (organized by Doctor), they also cover novels, comics, radio programs, etc. I highly recommend it to anyone writing Dr. Who fanfics, as well as people who just appreciate the show!_


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